


Knights and Knaves

by Luthien



Series: Luthien Does Writer's Month 2019 [14]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Australia, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Australia, F/M, Holiday Fling, Knights - Freeform, holiday romance, mini-golf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: Jaime and Brienne decide what to do with the rest of their day. Knights, castles, macadamia nuts and mini-golf ensue.Fill for Writer's Month 2019 Day 14: Fairy tale





	Knights and Knaves

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nire for looking this over for me.

Brienne awoke slowly, disoriented, and yet not. She had no idea what the time was, or even where she was, for the first confused seconds, but there could be no doubt about who she was with. She lifted her head from Jaime's shoulder and propped herself up on one elbow to look at him.

He looked not exactly younger, but definitely relaxed in his sleep. And he looked like those many pictures of him that she'd found online, and yet unlike, too. At the moment, he wore his hair somewhere between the shortest, most conservative cut and the very longest that she'd seen it. Perhaps she was biased, but she liked it best just how it was now, long at the front and pushed back out of his face, and a little shorter at the back. This was the hair that belonged to _her_ Jaime. And this was his face, the strong lines, well defined chin and high cheekbones; the green eyes hidden now by eyelids fringed with lashes tipped in gold; the long, interesting nose that could belong to no one else.

This was her Jaime, not the one the world thought it knew.

She stared at his mouth, the thin top lip and the slightly fuller bottom one. She'd kissed that mouth a lot since yesterday. Was it really only yesterday? Brienne felt as if she'd known Jaime for far longer, while, at the same time the events of today had only served to reinforce how completely she hadn't known Jaime Lannister.

But then, she couldn't have Jaime Lannister. He didn't belong to her and never would. She could have Jaime, though. For a week, or at least for the six days of it that were left.

Jaime's eyes fluttered and opened. He smiled as he saw her lying there, watching his face, and opened his lips as if to speak.

Brienne covered his mouth with her own before he could utter a word. She didn't want words. There'd already been more than enough of them today. More words wouldn't fix anything. Their bodies were far more eloquent, anyway.

It was fast and frantic this time, with an edge of desperation that had never been there before. They didn't get all of their clothes off—which was to say that they got hardly any of their clothes off. Brienne's underwear had been flung… somewhere, and her dress had been unzipped just far enough to allow the neckline to be pulled below her breasts, while Jaime's jeans were somewhere down around his knees.

Brienne fell back against the pillow, bringing Jaime with her and gasping her pleasure into the side of his neck. It felt just as good as all the other times, if a bit less as if they were safe inside their own little bubble of denial that there was anyone else in the world for the next week.

"You're amazing," Jaime mumbled against her ear.

Brienne cheeks immediately grew hot—or hotter—and she felt the flush creep along her neck. "I don't-" she began.

"I _do_," Jaime said, lifting his head. His hand came up to cup her cheek and prevent her from looking away. "I've never been in tune with anyone the way I'm in tune with you, Brienne."

"Chemistry," Brienne managed.

"That's one word for it," Jaime said, and kissed her, a long, unhurried leisurely kiss that nevertheless had Brienne whimpering into his mouth before it was done.

"We should get up," she said, "before...Oh…" She breathed in, suffused with a sudden pleasant warmth as Jaime's fingers rubbed her upper arm in slow circles.

He smiled just as slowly. Smugly. A little too pleased with himself. "I noticed how sensitive you were there when we were in the middle of…" He gestured expressively with his free hand. "I didn't realise I'd found a way to derail your entire thought processes."

Brienne blinked. "What? No, you haven't."

Jaime's phone buzzed on the bedside table. Not taking his eyes off her, he kept up his attentions to Brienne's arm as he reached around with his other hand to grab the phone.

"Yes," he said into the phone, and Brienne watched as all traces of amusement left his face and he dropped his hold on her arm. "Thanks. Yes, send it through." There was the whooshing noise of a text being received.

"What?" she asked as Jaime put the phone down on the bed. Her stomach clenched in dread.

"The pictures have been published. That was Bronn. He's sent through a link if we want to take a look—or not. It's up to you."

Brienne closed her eyes, feeling suddenly chilled, and forced herself to open them again. "I want to see," she said. "If people react, I want to know what they're reacting to."

Jaime picked up the phone and handed it to her. She took it with a hand that trembled only very slightly, and clicked on the link. It opened on a website called 'PP—Private Places'. Brienne barely had to scroll down at all to see that they had pride of place at the top of the page.

_Media boss Jaime Lannister with new 'companion', the mysterious statuesque blonde known only as 'Brianna'. We don't know what she does for a living, but Mistress Brianna looks more than capable of keeping the Lannister heir right where she wants him,_ the caption said.

Brienne scrolled down a bit more.

The first picture was of herself and Jaime standing side by side next to a flash of deep red that she knew to be the Aston Martin. Jaime was glowering, while Brienne was sporting the classic 'deer in headlights' look on her too-pink face. They looked faintly ludicrous together, with Brienne so tall and ordinary and _Brienne-ish_, while Jaime was just as gorgeous as he always was, with an added suggestion of danger in the way he held himself that reminded Brienne all too readily of the big cat that Jaime had told her featured on the Lannister coat of arms.

In the second picture, Jaime was lunging forward, looking murderous, as Brienne tried to hold him back. It had been taken right at the moment when she briefly lost her balance, and it looked as though they were going to end up in a heap on the ground at any second.

The third picture… Brienne hadn't even known that the third picture had been taken. In this picture, they weren't by the side of the road where the car accident had taken place. They were standing on the street outside the chocolate shop—sorry, chocolate _boutique_—in Byron Bay, and they were kissing. _Really_ kissing. Their hands were everywhere and they looked completely wrapped up in each other—almost literally, with one of Brienne's legs twining around one of Jaime's. If Brienne had been a passerby who had happened upon a couple doing that in the street, she would have felt mildly embarrassed, but seeing _herself_, like that, recorded for all time—or at least as long as the Internet existed…

She looked down at the sheets, feeling the heat rushing into her cheeks.

"That bad?" Jaime asked.

Wordlessly, Brienne handed him back the phone.

Jaime flipped through the pictures, grimacing. "I'm sorry," he said.

"But you're not surprised," she said.

"No. Not surprised." He sighed. "If it helps at all, these aren't the worst I've ever had."

Brienne's eyebrows lifted, curious in spite of her equally fervent belief that nothing could ever eclipse the sheer mind-numbing horror of that third picture. Or of the other two, for that matter.

"Back when I was in my early twenties," Jaime explained. "I was a bit of a party animal for a while there."

Brienne winced, seeing all too clearly in her mind's eye. Jaime would have been ridiculously pretty at that age, her mind also helpfully pointed out. She let her eyes sweep his features, as they had just before he'd awoken, let herself catalogue every detail, before considering the whole.

Jaime may have been pretty when he was younger, but he was beautiful now. The years had added a few lines and edges that would not have been there before, giving his face character, making it interesting and individual. Making it _Jaime_. And Jaime was hers, even if only for the next week. Why shouldn't she want to kiss him?

It was a good question. Why shouldn't she want to kiss him? And why _shouldn't_ she kiss him, even in public? It wasn't as if it was against the law. It wasn't as if other people didn't do it all the time. It was just something that Brienne had never done, had never let herself do, or would never have let herself do, if she'd wanted to, before this. It was as if there was one rule for Brienne and another rule for everyone else.

But in a lot of ways she'd left that Brienne behind, just like her luggage, when she got out of the rental car beside the highway yesterday, and started the journey that had led her to Jaime.

And now here she was. Here _they_ were.

Brienne sat up straight and met Jaime's eyes head on. She refused to be embarrassed any longer, or ashamed. Most of the women who saw those pictures would be insanely jealous, and they didn't even know the man he was, the man who was so much more than just a winner of the genetic lottery in the looks department.

"Yes?" Jaime asked, eyeing her slightly warily.

Brienne wondered what sort of expression was on her face, but it didn't really matter. "I want to go out," she said, and only knew how true it was once she'd voiced the words. She wasn't just making herself do it to try to prove something to herself; she _wanted_ to go out.

"You're sure that's such a good idea? The day that something like that appears is usually a day to lie low."

Brienne shook her head. "It's one thing to _choose_ to be here with you…"

Jaime grinned, and raised an eyebrow.

"... but it's quite another to stay here because we feel that we have no other option."

Jaime nodded, slowly.

"If it doesn't bother you to be seen having breakfast with me, walking down the street with your arm around me, _kissing_ me, then how on earth can I be anything but proud to be seen with you?"

"Brienne," Jaime began.

She leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips, and then drew back. It wouldn't do for them to get distracted. Again.

"I don't want to hide away," she said. "In fact, I want to do the opposite of that. Take me somewhere where the press wouldn't expect to find us, but not somewhere private or exclusive. Somewhere touristy. Somewhere _so_ touristy that no one even remotely famous would be caught dead there." She offered the idea up like a challenge.

And Jaime took it up immediately. He had watched her with a kind of amazed appreciation as she spoke, and once she was done he took her hand and kissed the back of it, as if he were some knight from centuries ago and she his lady. "I know _exactly_ the place," he said, with a devilish grin.

~*~

"The Macadamia Castle?" Brienne said faintly, reading the sign with the arrow that sat beside a giant statue of a medieval knight in full armour that loomed above the highway, as they reached the turn-off. The knight looked like something straight out of a fairytale. His armour was mostly blue with bits of silver, and there was a red skirt-thing underneath trimmed in gold. One armoured hand rested on the hilt of the sword at his hip, while the other held a long spear. He was… incredibly tacky.

And then the Macadamia Castle itself hove into view, and it was even worse. It was like a medieval castle, only not really. Brienne had seen real medieval castles, or the remains of them, and this was… not. It was more someone's idea of a medieval castle based on too many viewings of Disney films and not much else. There were even pictures of what looked to be cartoon characters ranged along the front, just below the battlements.

Jaime parked their borrowed SUV, a generic white vehicle that bore a striking resemblance to the one that had put his sports car out of action, and turned off the engine. "The Macadamia Castle," he said, with what sounded strangely like relish, as he got out of the car and turned to admire the arched entrance way. There was a large sign above it, which proclaimed that this was 'The Macadamia Castle' in red gothic script, just in case there could be any doubt. "I always wanted to come here when I was a kid. I don't know how many times we passed that knight, but it was a lot. My father would never agree to take us here, though."

"I wonder why?" Brienne said dryly.

"I wasn't even really all that interested in the castle itself, except that because my father refused to take us there, it assumed almost mythic proportions in my mind."

Brienne smiled. "I hope it's still worth it, even after all these years."

"Hey! I'm not _that_ old," Jaime protested, but he took her hand and kissed the back of it again, the same courtly gesture that he had done back in the bedroom. And just as he had a couple of times before, now that Brienne came to think about it, going back to when they were in the car on their way up the coast yesterday.

"You liked the knight," Brienne said, and it wasn't really even a guess but more of a deduction.

Jaime let out a small laugh. "Yeah, that was what I really wanted to see up close. Being a knight seemed as if it would be so much cooler than my actual life. Riding around on a horse all day and slashing things with swords sounded _much_ more interesting than going to school and having to sit still and read."

"I was a knight once," Brienne said. "Just in the school play one year. I wore a full suit of cardboard armour spray-painted silver." She smiled at the memory of how she'd looked, and tried not to let the accompanying feelings crowd in behind—but of course they did.

She'd wanted to play the pretty princess, and have a beautiful pink gown with shining sequins on it, but she'd been told in no uncertain terms that she was too tall and her features were 'not quite right' to be a princess. Brienne had only been nine at the time. It was the first time she'd been told that she wasn't the right sort of girl, or that she was not _being_ a girl in the right way, or that she was… lacking, somehow. It had been the first time, but it had also been very far from the last.

Brienne sighed.

"What?" Jaime asked.

He noticed. No matter what she was feeling, he always seemed to notice. It was… strange, but not unpleasant.

"Just memories," Brienne said.

Jaime didn't say anything, but he stepped closer and slung his arm around her. Brienne rested her head on his shoulder for a moment. He was the only man she'd ever been with—not that there had been many—who was of a height where she could do this without looking and feeling utterly ridiculous. She drank in the scent of him, all warm, musky male—and suddenly wished she hadn't been quite so determined to leave their room.

Well, it was too late now.

"Let's take a look at the knight," Jaime said.

"Okay," Brienne said, and they made their way up the grassy rise to where the knight stood on his platform.

The knight proved to be somewhat less impressive close up, though Brienne would never say that out loud where Jaime might hear. His—the knight's—colours were more garish and the detailing less fine than they had appeared from a distance, but as soon as Jaime asked she stepped back to take a picture with his phone as he posed between the knight's two huge, armoured legs. And then, as an afterthought, she fished her own phone out of her bag, and took another picture.

"Your turn," Jaime said, taking both phones from her.

"Oh, no, I-" Brienne began.

"I _insist_." He sounded so light-hearted as he said it that Brienne allowed herself to be shepherded over to the knight. She stood beside the statue, uncomfortably aware that her height put her head at crotch-level. She smiled, or at least grimaced, and after another moment it was done.

Jaime handed her phone back, but when Brienne would have moved away, he placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. "And now one together," he said.

"All right," Brienne said. She found it easier to smile this time. Maybe it was just the feel of Jaime's arm around her shoulders, warm and comforting and _right_, as he held his phone out as far as he could and took a selfie of the two of them.

"What do you think of that?" he asked, showing her the picture he'd taken.

Brienne stared at the screen, and then at Jaime's almost innocent face, and then back at the screen. They were both smiling happily. It was just as innocuous as the other pictures they'd taken, except that this time Jaime's arm could clearly be seen, half-raised behind Brienne's head. His index finger was pointing straight up under the knight's 'skirt'.

"You wanted to do that since you were a boy?" Brienne asked.

"Maybe," Jaime said.

Brienne shook her head, but the corners of her mouth were curling up in amusement.

It appeared that Jaime had seen enough of the knight up close, though. After one last pat on the knight's giant blue leg, he took Brienne's hand and they walked back down to the castle itself.

The interior did not live up to the promise of the exterior, which was probably just as well. It was basically just one huge retail space focused on, but not limited to, macadamia nuts. There was a cafe and a bar—which hopefully didn't serve drinks involving macadamia nuts—at one end, and an entire corner that seemed to feature only pink products relating to fairies, princesses, and probably fairy princesses as well.

Brienne spent as little time as possible looking at that particular corner.

"Did you know that the macadamia is the only plant native to Australia that is cultivated in any quantity as a commercial crop?" Jaime asked as he read through an information panel beside the counter offering hot roasted macadamia nuts.

"I do now," Brienne replied. And then she couldn't help grinning. This was not at all how she'd expected this day to turn out. It was… silly. And fun.

Jaime bought two small cardboard containers of hot macadamia nuts, and they ate them slowly—they really were _hot_—as they strolled arm in arm out of the castle and into the theme park beyond. It was almost immediately apparent that this was aimed primarily at children. There was an 'animal fun park' that consisted mainly of a petting zoo, with various native animals also on display, plus the promise of a daily bird show. A miniature train wended its way around the animal displays and around… the mini-golf course.

Jaime's eyes lit up. "How good are you with a golf club?" he asked.

"Good enough," Brienne said, trying to inject a suggestion of uncertainty into her voice. Jaime didn't need to know that her father had been obsessed with golf, and that she'd spent part of just about every weekend of her younger life at the local golf course.

The first mini-golf hole was an easy one, of course. Brienne got through it in not all that many strokes, a couple more than Jaime. He toted up their respective scores on the scorecard they'd been given along with the putters and ball at the main counter inside the castle. He was going to take this at least semi-seriously, then.

Brienne said nothing as they moved on to the second hole. They achieved a dead heat on that one. Jaime raised his eyebrows at that. "You're better than you give yourself credit for," he said.

Brienne just shrugged.

She exerted herself a bit on the third hole, and beat Jaime by three strokes.

"Brienne, I'm getting the feeling you haven't been entirely honest with me," Jaime said slowly.

"I didn't actually say very much," Brienne pointed out, and bit down on a smile.

Jaime surveyed her with narrowed eyes. "I'm not going to hold back on the next one," he said.

"Fine," Brienne said, her bottom lip trembling very slightly. "I won't either."

And then battle was properly joined.

They were very evenly matched, it turned out. Brienne played with steely-eyed precision, while Jaime's approach involved more flair and showiness, which made the outcome of his strokes less predictable. Sometimes, he hit the ball and it flew wildly out of range. Other times, he sent it just exactly where it needed to go. He did three holes in one in a row, and leapt ahead on the scorecard.

"We can keep going, if you like," he said with a nonchalant shrug and a twinkling eye.

"I like," Brienne said shortly.

Then they moved on to the second half of the course, where the set-ups were more twisty and challenging, and Brienne's skill came into its own.

By the time Brienne completed hole 15, victorious, they were neck-and-neck.

She shot Jaime a grin, and he grinned back. "Just lulling you into a false sense of security," he told her.

"You wish," Brienne retorted, and then dissolved into laughter as Jaime pulled her close so that she was pressed up hard against him, and kissed her there in plain sight of anyone who cared to look—not that most people here seemed to be paying them much attention. It was a golden afternoon and felt to Brienne as if the sun was smiling down on them. It was almost as if the unpleasantness with the photographer had never happened.

Brienne pulled ahead by one stroke on hole 16, then Jaime managed a _supremely_ lucky shot on hole 17, and they approached the final hole in a dead heat once more.

"We should make this more interesting," Jaime suggested. "What about the loser fills one specific request from the winner." He gave her a long, considering look that Brienne felt from the top of her head right down to her toes, which curled involuntarily in her shoes.

She leaned in close—closer—to Jaime. "You already do everything I want," she whispered in his ear. She didn't really think it through before she said it. It was just the simple truth.

She half-expected him to retort that he was going to win so she would be the one fulfilling his request, but instead Jaime's eyes darkened, just like that, while she was watching them. Brienne's breath caught.

A camera flashed.

They both froze, and then turned as one.

The man who had just taken a picture of them with his phone was about the same age, height and general colouring as Locke, but there the resemblance ended. He wore a neatly-trimmed moustache and was nattily dressed in an expensive-looking outfit in subdued tones of brown with a mandarin collar, which appeared to be made out of silk. He looked incongruous against the setting of artificial grass and plastic toadstools that adorned hole 18.

"Fancy meeting you here, Lannister," the man said, his voice as silky as his clothes.

"And you, Baelish," Jaime replied, his voice not silky at all. "I wouldn't have thought this would be your sort of thing."

"Oh, it's not," the man—Baelish—agreed. "But my dear little step-son expressed a wish to play mini-golf this afternoon, and who am I to refuse a child's heartfelt desire?" He glanced at the sullen-looking young boy lurking behind him, before returning his somehow unsettling gaze to Jaime—and Brienne.

"Really," Jaime said in a flat sort of voice. "So why are you taking pictures of us."

"Of you? By accident. Of the golf course and the 'castle'? Well, I like to keep a photographic record of any place in which I might take a financial interest at some point. You two were just an unexpected added extra," Baelish said, shrugging very slightly.

"So why don't you delete the unexpected added extra," Jaime suggested.

There was an indefinable _something_ present in his voice that had Brienne stepping closer to Jaime. She thought that when they next had a moment alone they might have to have a little chat about anger management.

"I might," Baelish said. "But what would be in it for me?"

"My gratitude," Jaime said.

Baelish appeared to consider this for a moment. Then he shook his head. "No, I don't think so," he said. "I'd need a bit more of an incentive."

Jaime eyed him coldly. "Blackmail is a very dirty word, Baelish."

"Isn't it, though," Baelish agreed. "Just as well I haven't mentioned it."

"Hey, mate," another male voice broke in. Jaime and Brienne turned to find a man with a rather prominent beer belly standing behind them. He was wearing khaki shorts and a somewhat holey t-shirt promoting somewhere called Movie World which was, apparently, 'Hollywood on the Gold Coast'. He was accompanied by three other men of similar sartorial elegance. "Are you going to be a while? Because if you are, maybe we could have a go at this one? I'm about ready to retire to the 19th hole," he said, jerking his head towards the part of the castle that housed the bar.

"Fine," said Jaime. "We were just leaving." He took Brienne's hand.

Brienne looked from Baelish, to the men waiting impatiently behind, and lastly to Jaime. The sun chose that moment to disappear behind a cloud. It seemed like some sort of portent. "Yes, we were just leaving," she said.

"Nice to have run into you," Baelish said, raising a hand in farewell. It was the hand that still held his phone.

Jaime didn't bother to dignify that with a response, and neither did Brienne. They hurried back past the golf holes and animal enclosures, not speaking. Brienne became aware of people staring at them. Was it just because they were moving so fast, when everyone around them was ambling along, taking in everything at their leisure? Or was it because they'd recognised Jaime? Or could it be that they'd recognised Jaime _and_ Brienne from the pictures online?

There was no way to tell, which was just as unsettling as all the rest.

They made it back into the castle without further incident, and only then did Jaime's pace slow a bit.

"Who is he?" Brienne asked. "Baelish, I mean," she added, in case it wasn't clear who she was referring to.

"A business rival of ours. At least, he'd like to think of himself that way. He owns a string of little rags that specialise in gossip and innuendo, and pictures ranging from the tame to the semi-obscene."

"So, he was threatening to run that picture in his publications," Brienne realised.

"Yes, but he won't," Jaime said.

"How can you be so sure?"

"I have… ways and means," Jaime said, and there was a dangerous glint in his eye.

Brienne stared at him. "What does that mean?" She was almost afraid to ask.

"Bronn," Jaime explained. "He's very useful."

"Yes, I can see that," Brienne said, not quite able to believe that she was actually having this conversation.

"He won't do anything violent. Not really. He won't need to. I know of certain… personal details about Petyr Baelish that he won’t want made public. I’m sure he and Bronn will come to some agreement." Jaime sounded not exactly relaxed about it, but… confident that that was how the situation would play out.

"That is not nearly as reassuring as you seem to think it is," Brienne said. "We really need to discuss…" She broke off, her eye caught by some brightly-coloured scarves for sale, and suddenly the penny dropped. Her heart sank down into her stomach. How could she have failed to realise? Even with everything else that had happened today, this should have occurred to her at once, and yet somehow it hadn't.

"What?" Jaime asked, following her gaze.

There was a red and gold scarf on the end of the rack, the one that had first caught Brienne's attention. It wouldn't suit her at all. It would make her look all washed out if she ever tried to wear something in that combination of colours. But it would look perfect on Shae.

Shae, who would be hosting Brienne for Christmas. Shae, for whom Brienne had not bought a Christmas present. She hadn't bought anything for Tyrion, either.

Or Jaime.

And tomorrow was Christmas Eve. What was she going to do?

"What?" Jaime asked again. "Is everything all right?" He was sounding concerned now.

"No," Brienne said.

Jaime blenched. "What's the matter?" he asked in a low voice.

Brienne's hand clutched Jaime's tight. She was going to have to do the thing in the world that she most hated doing, and at the worst possible time imaginable. There was nothing else for it.

"I need to go Christmas shopping," she said.

**Author's Note:**

> The knight and the macadamia castle are both real:


End file.
